Data Center Energy

To avoid accusations of greenwashing, data center operators must consider investing in a portfolio of renewable energy products. RECs cannot credibly be used to back claims of 100% renewable energy use.

My notes on the paper: Montevecchi, F., Hinterholzer, S., Stickler, T. & Hintemann, R. (2020) Energy-efficient cloud computing technologies and policies for an eco-friendly cloud market: final study report.

Most data center sustainability strategies still focus on renewable energy certificates (RECs). RECs are now considered low quality products because they cannot credibly be used to back claims of 100% renewable energy use

The carbon footprint of a laptop is mostly in the manufacturing. Servers are different, and ARM chips are starting to change the game.

Progress in renewable energy has pushed IT carbon footprints down, revealing how much more work is needed in manufacturing.

It is obvious that Zoom is better for the environment than flying but what about vs driving an EV or public transport? The problem is we can’t be sure.

Public cloud price wars have ended, and a new battle over who is the greenest has begun.

There is scope to start something tackling the problem of data center energy consumption. However, there are significant challenges: how to measure the problem, the uncertainty around the current situation, and the limited number of growth buyers.